Pimp myPlane

The Vegas Viper-Anairplane gone wildBY ALTON K. MARSH

Really, it's our fault. David Lessnickof Las Vegas was perfectly happywith his 1964 Piper Comanche

250-until he saw AOPA's2008 sweep­stakes airplane. He paid $80,000 for theComanche in 2005 and was quite happywith it. It was in perfect condition with amid-time Lycoming 0-540 engine. Thenhe went to AOPA Expo a few years ago(before the event was renamed AOPAAviation Summit) and sat in our sweep­stakes Piper Archer with its shiny glasscockpit and luxurious interior.

"I was blown away. I climbed in it,and sat in those seats, and I was like,'Wow, this is what it is supposed to belike,''' Lessnick said. That planted anidea that would ultimately have himchrome-plating his gas caps and cus­tom-painting his towbar, but it would beadditional months before that journeywould begin. First, there was a flirtationwith owning a jet-a second result of hisvisit to AOPAExpo that year. Cirrus andPiper salesmen he met there revived hisinterest in jet ownership.

Prior to the 2008 Expo, this 800-hourpilot had made a deposit on an Emivest(Swearingen) SJ30, back when depositswere $25,000 instead of $100,000, buthe had withdrawn it when the Emivest

company hit financial problems. Expowas like a candy store: He liked thePiperJet, was impressed with the Dia­mond D-Jet, but focused his dreams onthe Cirrus Vision SF50.

That same year Lehman Brothersfiled for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, thestock market collapsed, and overnight

AOPA PILOT· 50 . MAY 2011

The 'Vegas Viper' makeoverHere's what went into the Piper Comanche

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Lessnick's real estate development busi­ness was affected. Suddenly, he wasn'table to get financing for new projects.Completed projects weren't selling forthe profit he had expected, so keepingthe Piper Comanche began to look likethe best option.

Lessnick began to focus what headmits is his "slightly obsessive per­sonality" on the Comanche. The battlebetween "want" and "need" began, with"want" in the lead. I-Ieloved the look and

performance of the new, sleek, high-per­formance four-seat singles but couldn'taccept the $400,000 to $600,000 price

AUPA PILOT· 52 . MAY 2011

tags that came with them. For $80,000,he reasoned, he could make his Coman­che into a luxury aircraft with a glasscockpit. It already has a sports-car feelbecause of its crisp roll rate and giveshim a true airspeed of between 150 and160 knots at 9,500 feet to 14,500 feet,burning only 12 gallons per hour. Butbefore it was over, the $80,000 budgetwould balloon to $104,000 as he had onegood idea after another.

He added a mega-annual inspectionthat included replacement of manyparts as a precaution, since he was basi­cally dismantling the aircraft to rebuild

it. The annual turned into an airframeoverhaul that came to $12,600.

"While the overall project cost mealmost 50 percent more than I hadoriginally budgeted, I really feel I got anairplane that beat any expectations thatI had by 100 percent. That's good mathin my book," Lessnick said.

He calculates his operating cost,given that he flies 200 hours a year,at $130 per hour. That includes insur­ance ($2,100 per year on a hull valueof $175,000). the hangar, the annualinspection, Jeppesen subscriptions, avi­onics upkeep, miscellaneous expenses

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of $2,400 per year, and variable coststhat include an average $60 per hourfor fuel, $15 per hour as an enginereserve, and $2 an hour for miscella­neous expenses. To get the insurancecompany to cover the higher value, hehad to send photos of the aircraft, withinvoices to prove his case, to the agent.If he were to fly only 100 hours per year,the per-hour cost rises to $183.

The airplane gained 116 poundswith all the modifications, from 1,750up to 1,866, but it still has an honest5I8-pound payload with full fuel of90gallons, 86 usable. All seat and cargo-

area pockets are webbing instead ofcloth or plastic. The webbing came froma local Mercedes Benz parts department.

"The trick is thinking through all thedetails, and visualizing it before you starton the project," Lessnick said.

A head start

Before he saw the sweepstakes Archer,Lessnick did what he thought were sen­sible things that improved safety andperformance. He upgraded from a gen­erator to an alternator, swapped out thetwo-blade propeller for a three-bladepropeller, and replaced the mechani-

cal tachometer with a digital one. Heignored paint and interior upgradesbecause they were "wants." He wasbeing very practical. Yes, he was. Thenhe watched his favorite television show,Pimp My Ride, in which automobileowners load their cars with high-end,extraordinary embellishments. Thememory of the AOPA Archer came tomind, and the dreaming began. What ifhe "pimped" his airplane?

Practically speaking, he didn't need anew panel. He bought the airplane witha Garmin GNS 530 for communicationsand GPS navigation. It also had, when

AOPA PILOT· 53· MAY 2011

The rear interior (right) com'pares well toluxury jets and might even put a few ofthem to shame. Wooden baffles on the

rear shelf conceal outlets from", portableair conditioner installed in the Ijaggagecompartment. When the owner needs toincrease his payload, he simply removesthe air conditioner. Note the hand-stitched

control yokes (above) and customizedrudder pedals. Crossing over the HooverDam (far right).

purchased in 2005, a Cobham/S- TecSystem Thirty autopilot with GPS steer­ing, and a JPI EDM-700 engine monitorwith fuel-flow readout. He added a Gar­min GPSMAP 696 with XM WX satelliteweather and radio. He did not need a

new panel, he said, but he wanted a newpanel" ...like a spoiled adolescent."

Two choices for a glass panelemerged: the Aspen Avionics EvolutionPro series of products, or the GarminG500, upgradable to synthetic vision.Aspen's rebate caught his attention,and he liked the system-but he notonly liked the G500, he "drooled" over

AOPA PILOT' 54 •MAY ~Oll

Lit. The drool factor tipped the scalesslightly toward Garmin. StilI, he orderedand paid for the Aspen system (beingpractical again), then cancelled it andordered the Garmin G500. (He still hasthe Garmin 530, upgraded to includeWAAS.)Since he could use the IPI EDM­700 connection to upgrade to a newermodel, he ordered the EDM-830, a morecapable display showing fuel and batterystatus, oil temperature, manifold pres­sure, and rpm.

"I'm a real estate developer andbuilder," Lessnick said. "It was just likebuilding a custom house. You start with

a small idea-in my case it was the seats.All of a sudden you realize, if the seatslook so good, now the overhead panelhas to be unique. And the side panelshave to be redone. And, oh, my gosh, theknob for the flaps. I can't leave it the wayit is now. And the door handle has to be

changed. I can't leave a 1954 Ford Fair­lane door handle on the airplane. Everylittle piece of that airplane has a part ofme in it, and it's very, very unique."

AOPA's interior shop

Lessnick spent 200 hours on the Inter­net researching the best of the best, from

paint to interiors-and thebest paint and interiorshop to do the work. Heultimately picked OxfordAviation in Oxford, Maine,partly because the AOPAArcher was done there.

That meant he had to flyhis aircraft more than2,000 nautical miles fromNevada.

Here are the highlightsof what he now calls the

"Vegas Viper." (He evenhas water bottles withthat name on it, brandedwater to enhance the passenger expe­rience, but in truth they weren't veryexpensive.).

Seats. The seats were stripped tothe frame, and then rebuilt with multi­density foam, similar to the memoryfoam used in the Sealy memory-foammattress. "I can sit in there for hours

and hours and not be fatigued at all,"Lessnick said. He got the idea from a

picture of the seats used in the PorschePanamera, and sent the picture toOxford.

The front seats of the Panamera

also have a hard back, as opposed tofabric, so the designers at Oxford Avia­tion built a custom mold and created

two Fiberglas backs with a cutout fora DVD screen. "That was my goal, myvision. Iwanted to get into the best

Bentley [carl with the beststitching, the best materials,and inlaid woods."

The seats were custommade to his measurements.

Overhead panel. It is aone-of-a-kind custom design.First, a custom mold was madefor a Fiberglas panel. Then,Brazilian rosewood was inlaid

so that the wood grain lines upperfectly despite the angles inthe panel.

DVD screens. Lessnick

has twin 12-year-old daugh­ters who like to watch movies

in flight when they accompany theirdad on business trips to SouthernCalifornia. The idea for the screenscame from the automotive world. "We

got a field approval [from the FAAIand the avionics shop made sure therewas no interference with the new glassavionics I put in the airplane," Less­nick said. A DVD player behind oneof the screens plays a movie on both.

A tilt-out DVD player behind the pilot's seat (above) plays movies for the owner's children onboth the attached screen and a second screen mounted behind the copilot's seat.

The children listen through noise-can­celing headsets.

Chrome everywhere. The tail tie­down, the wing tiedown rings, and thefasteners for the engine cowling arechromed. Why so much chrome?

"You know, it's from Vegas. [ wanta little bling. I want something to shinea little bit," Lessnick said. The aircraftis based at North Las Vegas Airport, butduring the preparation for this article

it was temporarily at HendersonExecutive Airport in Henderson, asouthern suburb of Las Vegas. There,chains are used to tie down aircraft.

Former F-16 pilot Murray Robinson,who led the formation for air-to-air

photos in this article, helped to removethem link by link to avoid damaging thechrome plating.

Vegas Viper name. Where did thename come from? "I wanted somethingthat would stick in people's minds. Iknew this was going to be a specialairplane," Lessnick said. "I like thealliteration."

More bling was added by, in part, chromingthe tiedown rings. There's more chrome inthe future when the engine is overhauledand chrome will be added to the cylindercovers.

Speed mods. His aircraft picked upseveral knots thanks to speed modifica­tions for the wheel wells and re-riggingof the airplane after it was painted.Older airplanes that are out of rig loseseveral knots because of increased

drag. The Wheel Spats smooth theairflow and reduce drag caused byretracted but somewhat exposed main­gear wheels. Wing root fairings smooththe airflow over the stabilator, and pro­vide the pilot more control authorityon landing.

Finally, Johnston Aircraft Servicewing tips were added to improve aile­ron authority when flying at lowerspeeds-OK, actually they look goodand that was the primary reason.

Soundproofing. "We put in spe­cial soundproofing," Lessnick said."Not only does it dampen the audi­ble sounds, but the vibrations thatcome from the airplane. So the fatiguefactor has been greatly reduced.I typically fly two-hour missions. ButI've been flying more long, long cross­countries, literally like from the EastCoast to the West Coast. I went to Osh­

kosh, I'm going to Sun 'n Fun, AOPASummit. It is just an absolute joy to flyin now."

"The soundproofing [uses] OxfordAviation's proprietary materials, thesame ones we used to soundproofNOAA's [National Oceanic and Atmo­spheric Administration] HurricaneHunter," said Jim Horowitz, presidentof Oxford Aviation

"Our Super Soundproofing startswith a skin dampener; lead wouldbe great but it would be too heavy,obviously. We use an impregnated

vinyl cut into an X pattern to stop theoilcanning of the skin. A three-partmix of different and unique frequency­absorbing glass and foams aresandwiched into Mylar heat-sealedpackets. Each and every fuselageside, floor, and roof partition is insu­lated this way. We actually numberthem specific to the location sothat they can all come out and go backin the way they were designed andbuilt. Last, soundproofing materialsare adhered to the side panels andcarpeting."

Air conditioning. It easily hits120 degrees Fahrenheit on the rampduring most Las Vegas summers. Less­nick reconfigured an Arctic Air Coolerused by many small aircraft owners."You'll see what look like wooden

speaker grills," Lessnick said. "That'snot what that is. The tubes from the

Arctic Air come up through there." Hehas an electrical outlet in the cargocompartment where the Arctic Air unitsits, strapped down. A switch in thecockpit allows him to turn it on.

"It cools the cabin 30 degrees. It'swonderful. If I need the extra useful

load, I just take out the Arctic Air," hesaid.

Done•••well, not quiteSo, David, are you finished yet?

"I do need to do firewall-forward. Myengine is almost at TBO. When I redothe engine I am going to put a factory­new Lycoming 0-540, which is whatthe airplane came with. ['II put a dualexhaust in it. I'll have the valve rocker

covers chromed. I got inspired whenI went to Oshkosh. There's always some­thing to do." When Lessnick showedhis airplane in competition at EAAAirVenture 2010, he came home withthe best-in-class trophy. When theengine work is done he will have a totalinvestment, including the purchaseprice, of $228, I71.

Will that complete it?"We're in the 99-percent ballpark

right now. There are a few things I stillhave to do. I want to put in a [Garmin]430 with WAAS,so I will have two. Andlet's see, there's one other thing I wantto do. It escapes my mind."

"What are the chances that you aregoing to find something to do after youthink it is completed?" he was asked.

"Oh, I'd say 100 percent." IDA

E-mail the author at altofl.marsh@aopa.org.

AOPA PILOT' 57 •~IAY 2011